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A TICK-FREE SOUTH 




THE MOSS ON THE TREES SHOWS IT IS LOUISIANA AND THE CATTLE SHOW THAT THE TICK HAS BEEN DIPPED OUT. 



A TICK-FREE SOUTH 




U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 

BUREAU OF ANIMAL INDUSTRY 
W^ishingtori. D. C. 



; CJ c o 




A TICK-FREE DAIRY HERD IN SOUTH CAROLINA, 



0, 6t °. 
OCT 22 1917 



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A TICK-FREE SOUTH. 



^ r I ^HE cattle tick is being stamped out in the South. 
^ _J_ On thousands of farms, where it once feasted 
s on unthrifty scrubs, there are now pure-bred bulls 
and grade herds of beef and dairy cattle, grazing in 
security and turning their owners' feed into flesh and 
milk untaxed by the toll of blood the tick levies on 
its victims. The change that the elimination of the 
pest can bring is shown in these pictures. Their like 
can be seen in any of the tick-freed areas. These areas 
are growing in number and size each year. Already 
many States are absolutely free, and the total eradica- 
tion of the tick is now only a matter of determination on 
the part of those who still suffer from it. A trifling in- 
vestment of money and trouble will release any county 
from the handicap under which southern farmers have 
always labored. 

Good live stock is the basis of good farming. Without 
cattle pastures lie idle, roughage goes to waste, there is 
no manme with which to enrich the soil, and the farmer 
must depend for his living almost entirely upon one or 
two cash crops, which may or may not yield him a profit. 
With poor cattle the upshot is much the same, for scrubs 
do not turn feed into beef and milk to the extent that 
grade stock does. The average run of cattle in the South 



to-day unquestionably is far inferior to the stock in other 
sections where natural conditions EU'e less favorable, and, 
in consequence, the returns to the southern farmer are 
unduly small. 

The tick is the explanation. For generations this para- 
site has been sucking the blood of the cattle of the South , 
killing some with Texas fever and weakening the vitality 
of the survivors. But above all it has prevented the 
introduction of new and better blood with which to build 
up the nm-down herds. There is a saying among cattle 
men that the bull is half the herd, but few owners care to 
import a valuable bull into a ticky country only to see it 
die of tick fever. The returns from grade stock in 
heavier, fatter animals and in greater milk production 
have been demonstrated many times. Elsewhere the 
farmer is taking the lesson to heart, but the man in a 
ticky county is helpless to act upon it no matter how 
convinced of its importance. 

Wlien the tick goes out it leaves the door open for the 
pure-bred bull to come in. Like most good things, such 
an animal costs money, but for those unable to make 
such a heavy investment there are the cooperative bull 
clubs. Through the medium of these organizations 
farmers can secure for themselves at a very moderate 



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cost all the benefits of a pure-bred sire which replaces 
in a community a number of individually owned scrub 
bulls. These scrubs may and in all probability do rep- 
represent in the aggregate a much larger investment than 
the one pure-bred, but they do nothing hke as much 
to bring money into the community. In one club the 




th ^'ood blood but ticks are getting the blood that i 
go into breeding strength. 



membership fee was $7.50 a yccu-. In return the farmer 
obtained in the course of a period of 10 years the serv- 
ices of five 8-iO bulls. 

The ultimate effect of such organization upon the 
character of the herds is, of course, obvious. And the 
South is badly in need of improvement in this respect. 



On January 1, 1915, the average price of 2-year-old beef 
cattle in 10 tick-infested States was $25.90. For the 
remainder of the country it was $48.47. Eighteen tick- 
free States had an average of over $50, and only two 
were under $40. Part of this difference is due to the 
fact that ticky cattle are not only scrubs but unhealthy 









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This shows what ticks do to a pure-bred cow — suck out the valuable blood that 
she should be giving to her calves. The better the blood, the more costly the 

scrubs as well. The blood that should go to the making 
of flesh is wasted in feeding the tick. The tick grows 
fat, the steer stays thin. In one case in which a tick- 
infested steer was dipped as an experiment in the arsen- 
ical bath for a period of two months, the animal's weight 
on the same feed rose from 730 to 1,015 pounds. With 



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sty \ ' 




'-■''>^''t*: ''^- ;; 



A TICKY HERD. MACHINES FOR TURMNG PASTURAGE AND FEIH l\|n i;|ii(,|) ion m Ks 1\- 

PROFITS FOR THEIR OWNER. 

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1\ 111 \li:\ I, \nLK, AND 



dairy cattle there is a corresponding loss in the niilk flow 
from ticky stock. Depending on the heaviness of the 
infestation this loss in milk may range from 18 to 42 per 
cent of the normal production, and a reduction of even 
18 per cent is quite sufficient to turn a dairyman's profit 
into a loss. 

Under these conrUtions it is not surprising that in 
many pairts of the South to-day both dairying and beef 
raising are neglected and unpopular industries. The 
remedy is, however, simple. The way to get rid of the 
tick is known as positively as the harm that it does. 
Repeated dippings in an arsenical bath of all the herds 
in a county will kill off the pest in the course of one 
season, and thereafter all that is needed is a Uttle care 
to prevent its regaining a foothold. The danger of this 
is, of coiu"se, diminishing fast as the tick is removed from 
one stronghold after another. Already .312,012 square 
miles have been cleaned and released from quarantine 
out of a total infested area 10 years ago of 728,565 square 
miles. There is no southern State in which some terri- 
tory has not been reclaimed, and in all this work there 
are only two instances of a county once freed allowing 
itself to become reinfested. 

The cost of dipping in comparison with the benefits 
is trivial. From S40 to S60 should cover the cost of the 
materials for a dipping vat for the neighborhood, and 
the labor is usually donated by those who expect to use 



the bath. The cost of the arsenic and other materials 
used in preparing the bath is well under 5 cents a season 
for each head of cattle dipped. Vats and baths must be 
supplied by the people of the county, but the U. S. 
Department of Agriculture will furnish trained men to 
supervise the construction of the vats, the preparation 
of the baths, and the actual dipping of the cattle. Under 
such supervision there is no danger of injury to the 
cattle. A few simple precautions do away with all risk 
of this. The animals, for example, should not be thirsty 
when dipped, as they might be tempted to drink in the 
bath, and this is intended for external use only. For 
10 years now, however, cattle have been dipped in 
thousands in these vats and there is no evidence that 
any appreciable number have ever been injured in any 
way. 

There is far more danger that indifference, negligence, 
or sheer laziness on the part of a few cattle owners will 
hold the work back or render it of no avail. To be 
effective the dipping must be done at intervals of ap- 
proximately two weeks and all cattle must be dipped. 
To overlook a few steers is to leave to the tick a feeding 
ground and a breeding refuge from which they will 
emerge to raid anew the dipped cattle on other farms. 
In every county there are usually a few recalcitrants 
who either can not or will not see any good in tick eradi- 
cation. Unless their neighbors are willing to suffer 



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A swim through the arsenical dipping vat and the cattle 
are freed from blood-sucking ticks. A few more treatments 
and the county is tick free and ready to welcome the 
prosperity that conies from good rattle and dairv herds. 




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indefinitely for their obstinacy these men must be com- 
pelled to dip with the rest. For this reason the custom- 
ary preliminary to a campaign of eradication is a county 
election in which the people vote for or against the 
undertaking. If eradication is carried, the local authori- 
ties are empowered to enforce the necessary regulations. 



Sanitary Board will designate the parishes in which work 
is to be done, inaugurating in this way a systematic cam- 
paign that will result in the freeing of the entire State. 
A strong argument for this movement to malte eradi- 
cation a State instead of a county matter is to be 
found in the injurious effect upon a free county of a tick- 




This pure-bred bi 
The owne 



rxals .,1 1 1 ,l,iys l.y his 
rth more in calves than i 



-made 160 pounds of butter in 80 days and her olTspring sold for $1,000. 



Two States, Mississippi and Louisiana, however, have 
gone further than this. In the belief that the existence 
of the tick in any county is a menace to the prosperity 
of the entire State, the people of Mississippi have decreed 
that all tick-infested counties shall undertake eradication. 
In Louisiana, after April 1, 1918, the State Live Stock 



infested neighbor. The Federal Government, as is well 
known, has quarantined all ticky sections. From these 
areas no cattle can be shipped out unless they have been 
clipped under Federal inspection or are intended for im- 
mediate slaughter. Obviously these restrictions, essential 
for the protection of the rest of the country, hamper the 



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marketing of local cattle and tend to depress the price of 
steers in the quarantined areas. Unfortunately, this effect 
extends, to some extent at least, to those counties which, 
though free themselves and released from quarantine, 
may chance to be surrounded by infested territory. It is 
because so much of Mississippi aheady has been cleared 
of the pest that the people of the State are in a position 
to insist that a few backward counties shall not indefi- 
nitely disturb the trade of the whole State. 



For the tick and prosperity do not get on well together; 
they are not good neighbors. The tick means poor, 
scrubby, unthrifty cattle; prosperity demands good herds, 
well cared for. The South, with its long growing season, 
its abundance of cheap feeds, and its mild climate, can 
raise cattle economically and market them profitably. 
Where this is being done to-day the whole aspect of farm 
Ufe has been changed. It can be done everywhere, if only 
the tick is eradicated. And the tick can be eradicated. 




THE OWNER OF THIS TEXAS HERD FOUND IT PAID TO GET RID OF TICKS. 

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THIS MISSrSSIPPI SCENE SHOWS THE TYPE OF FARM THAT FOLLOWS THE DIPPING VAT. 

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A GEoacilA UAIIiY KAHM TYPICAL UK WHAT .MU;irr BE COMMON IN THK SoLTH BUT FOB THE TICKS. 

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lllE OW.NEU Ul' THIS AUk.VASAS FAUM FIRST GOT HID OF THE TICK A.\U THEN GOT Itll) UF bCHUIi CATTLE. 

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DAIRY PROSPERITY ON A TICK-FREE ALABAMA FARM. 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRES 



002 824 852 



For further information in regard to tick eradication you are requested to write to the Bureau of Animal Industry, 
S. Department of Agricuhure, Washington, D. C, or to the local office of the bureau in your State. 
Address "Bureau of Animal Industry" at any of the following places: 



Jefferson County Savings Bank Building, Birmingham, Ala. 

Gazette Building, Little Rock, Ark. 

Herd Building, Jacksonville, Fla. 

Federal Building, Atlanta, Ga. 

Roumain Building, Baton Rouge, La. 

Millsaps Building, Jackson, Miss. 



Federal Building, ^Vashington, N. C. 
W estern Union Building, McAlester, Okla. 
Union National Bank Building, Columbia. S. C. 
Live Stock Exchange Building, Fort ^^o^th, Tex. 
Kress Building, Houston, Te.x. 



WiSHIXGTOX : C0VERX5IEXT PEIXTIXG OFFICE : 1917 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



002 824 852 



Hollinger Corp. 
pH8.5 



